By 
September 14th, 2023
NASA has released its Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) report completed by an independent study team the space agency commissioned in 2022.
On June 9, 2022, NASA announced that the agency is commissioning a study team to examine unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) – that is, observations of events in the sky that cannot be identified as aircraft or known natural phenomena – from a scientific perspective. The study will focus on identifying available data, how best to collect future data, and how NASA can use that data to move the scientific understanding of UAPs forward.
In an earlier posting, the UAP study group made note that there are currently a limited number of high-quality observations of UAP, which make it impossible to “draw firm scientific conclusions about their nature.”
That just-issued report is available at:
Image credit: NASA
Whole-of-government framework
In an executive summary, the report explains that “NASA is in an excellent position to contribute to UAP studies within the broader whole-of-government framework” – led by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO).
The report explains that the study of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) presents a unique scientific opportunity that demands a rigorous, evidence-based approach.
“Addressing this challenge will require new and robust data acquisition methods, advanced analysis techniques, a systematic reporting framework and reducing reporting stigma.”
Public engagement: crowdsourcing
The new NASA report explains that engaging the public is also a critical aspect of understanding UAP.
Image credit: Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies
The panel sees several advantages to augmenting data collection efforts using modern crowdsourcing techniques, including open-source smartphone-based apps that simultaneously gather imaging data and other smartphone sensor metadata from multiple citizen observers worldwide.
“NASA should therefore explore the viability of developing or acquiring such a crowdsourcing system as part of its strategy.
According to the report, NASA’s very involvement in UAP will play a vital role in “reducing stigma associated with UAP reporting, which almost certainly leads to data attrition at present.”
According to NASA chief Bill Nelson, the space agency has selected a still-to-be-named Director of UAP Research, a person that will develop and oversee the implementation of NASA’s scientific vision for UAP research, “including using NASA’s expertise to work with other agencies to analyze UAP and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to search the skies for anomalies. NASA will do this work transparently for the benefit of humanity.”
Airspace threat
Finally, the report also points out that the threat to U.S. airspace safety posed by UAP is “self-evident.”
“NASA’s long history of partnership with the FAA should be leveraged to investigate how advanced, real-time analysis techniques could be applied to future generations of air traffic management (ATM) systems.”
Image credit: Yannick Peings, Marik von Rennenkampff/AIAA
As the report concludes, “at this point there is no reason to conclude that existing UAP reports have an extraterrestrial source. However, if we acknowledge that as one possibility, then those objects must have traveled through our solar system to get here.”
“Using unclassified data was essential for our team’s fact-finding, open-communication collaboration, and for upholding scientific rigor to produce this report for NASA,” said David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation and chair of the UAP independent study team. “The team wrote the report in conjunction with NASA’s pillars of transparency, openness and scientific integrity to help the agency shed light on the nature of future UAP incidents. We found that NASA can help the whole-of-government UAP effort through systematic data calibration, multiple measurements and ensuring thorough sensor metadata to create a data set that is both reliable and extensive for future UAP study.”
A weather ballooon sails into the sky after release from the Cape Canaveral weather station in Florida. Image credit: NASA
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